When men love warmly, I doubt
whether in the case of the children of those whom they love, they can
be impartial judges. Justice is carried away by affection. Fathers
fancy that their ugly boys are beautiful, and sons do not see the
uncomeliness of their fathers. Brother looks at brother in the light of
affection rather than of nature. It is thus that I am afraid your
holiness has judged what I have written, and that the sentence has been
delivered by warmth of feeling. For truly the power of love is very
great, and not seldom it keeps out of sight considerable errors in our
friends. It is because you have so much of it, my dear friend, that you
have wreathed what I have written with your kindly praises. All I can
do is to ask your piety to beseech the good Lord to ratify your eulogy,
and make the man you have praised something like the picture painted in
the words of his admirers.